August 27: Kind to animals

It is good to know that Israel stands out so resoundingly in its expression of compassion for animals and awareness of their suffering.

Letters 370.
(photo credit:REUTERS/Handout )

Kind to animals

Sir, – I want to thank you for the wonderful coverage you gave
to the animal rights march in Tel Aviv (“Animal activists take over Tel Aviv’s
Rothschild Blvd,” August 25).

It is good to know that Israel stands out
so resoundingly in its expression of compassion for animals and awareness of
their suffering. And it is good to know that a newspaper such as yours cares
enough about this issue to cover the story so well.

BATYA BAUMAN Amherst,
Massachusetts

Sir, – As president emeritus of Jewish Vegetarians of North
America (JVNA), I believe the thousands of Israelis who marched to spotlight the
need to end abuses of animals are applying Judaism’s beautiful teachings about
compassion to animals.

They are rachmanim b’nei rachmanim (compassionate
children of compassionate ancestors).

They are imitating God, “Whose
compassion is over all His works (Psalms 145:9). They are applying Proverbs
12:10: “The righteous person considers the lives of his or her
animals.”

Contrary to Jewish teachings, there is massive mistreatment of
animals raised for food on factory farms. Just a few examples: • Male chicks at
egg-laying hatcheries are killed almost immediately after birth since they can’t
lay eggs and have not been genetically programmed to produce much
flesh.

• Dairy cows are artificially impregnated annually so that they
will be able to continue giving milk.

• The offspring of cows are are
taken away almost immediately, often to be raised as veal under very cruel
conditions.

What makes the widespread mistreatment of animals even more
shameful is that it contributes significantly to climate change, soil erosion,
deforestation, water pollution, rapid species loss and other environmental
problems, and it creates products that are major causes of heart disease,
cancer, strokes and other chronic, degenerative diseases.

RICHARD H.
SCHWARTZ New York

More than sliced bread

Sir, – Acknowledging the need for
professional nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) is long
overdue in Israel. It is rewarding to see that the Health Ministry has taken the
initiative to provide education and training to this end (“The nurse
practitioner is in,” Health, August 25).

However, those unfamiliar with
the role NPs and PAs provide will be misled with such statements that in
geriatric care “a great chunk of the work is routine” and these professionals
can take over certain routine tasks that for a physician to do “is a
waste.”

It is clear that NPs and PAs will be seen as little more than
“sliced bread” if we are tasked with the routine aspects of patient care deemed
a waste for physicians to do. The community of patients and physicians will need
to be educated as well that NPs and PAs provide acute and chronic care for
patients in conjunction with the physician in every aspect of their care – not
just the routine things that physicians might find a waste to do.

I
applaud the advanced practice nurses recognized by the Health Ministry. Their
statements in the article indicate that they have a clear picture of the
expansive role that NPs can have in the lives of their patients.

TAMARA
K. SCHECTER DOLGIN Kochav Yair The writer is a family nurse practitioner

Sir, –
Not because I am the mother of one of the new nurse practitioners, Shana
Gottesman, but the article by Judy Siegel- Itzkovich was beautifully written and
informative.

Kol hakavod to Herzog Hospital for pioneering this important
project. And special appreciation goes to the writer, my daughter and the other
nurses.

LEE DOR-SHAV Jerusalem

Headline test

Sir, – The grasp of the
person who wrote “Australia seizes control on third day as England digs in; rain
washes out day four” (Sports, August 25) leaves something to be
desired.

In the first place, Australia “seized control” of the final test
on the very first day and continued on the next. Second, contrary to the
headline, the third day added nothing to that control. In fact, the day
virtually ensured that the Aussies might only be able to achieve a draw in the
match.

LEON BENNETT Netanya

We’re all out there

Sir, – As I read your
August 25 issue, I began my day with news stories that, sadly, we have become
accustomed to. Stories of suicide bombers (“Bombs kill 42 outside Sunni mosques
in Tripoli”) and nerve gas attacks (“Obama moves warships toward Syria, convenes
military, security advisers”), people who commit murder in the name of God and
so on.

Then you gave me an opportunity to escape from that morose
beginning and literally laugh out loud with Herb Keinon’s wonderful “Memories of
summer’s end” (Out There).

Keinon has the ability to take daily life and
turn it into everyone’s story, to make us sit up and say: “Hey, that’s me, too!”
His humorous look at life and its foibles reminds me of the humorist Dave
Barry.

Long may Keinon write and long may he be read!

ZE’EV M. SHANDALOV
Ma’aleh Adumim

Reasonable wonder

Sir, – Marcie Lenk (“Criticize me as a friend,
not as Roger Waters,” Observations, August 23) says that when confronted with
the argument over the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, “decent
people reasonably wonder what to do.” She’s almost right.

Reasonable
people might wonder – if they haven’t given it much thought or just aren’t too
bright – but BDS is so wildly out of proportion to both Israeli policies and
everything else going on in the world that no one can wonder
reasonably.

Her next statement is even farther off the mark when she says
we Jews and Israelis get defensive about BDS because it doesn’t further the
cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

First of all, nobody
I know gets defensive when Alice Walker or Roger Waters rants about Israel’s
so-called crimes. Depending on temperament and mood, we either give them the
thought they deserve – none – or get hopping mad.

If we get mad it’s not
because they have failed to bring us closer to the Palestinians. Actually seeing
people with the morals of hyenas unsettles us. (And peace with the Palestinians
is not the moral yardstick against which we measure everything. That attitude
reminds me of an old Woody Allen standup routine in which he needs to commit
adultery so that he and his wife can divorce under New York law.

One
woman he propositions for this purpose responds, “Not even if it would help the
Space Program.”) Lenk is right in that we should strive to correct the failings
of our society, including our treatment of minorities. But we should resolutely
refuse to discuss such things in the context of accusations from Waters and his
ilk.

MICHAEL BERKOWITZ Alon Shvut

Timely item

Sir, – Dvora Waysman’s “A
tribute to Dr. David Applebaum” (Comment & Features, August 22) could not be
more timely.

Let me explain.

The suicide bomber who murdered
Applebaum and six other Israelis was released from administrative detention
seven months before blowing up Cafe Hillel.

We are now releasing heinous
murders.

Instead of releasing murderers, surely a six-month building
freeze would be better. It will end and even be reversible.

Releasing
murders is a fait accompli.

EALLAN HIRSHFELD Ra’anana

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